I’m curious. What if you received a phone call tomorrow from the President? Let’s just say the country was facing a serious situation and he knew that you had just the right skills to address that situation. If he asked you to take on the mission, would you do it? [Read more…]

My grandpa passed away about a week and a half ago. We travelled up to Michigan for the funeral. I’ve never been much of one for attending funerals. I’m not much of one for crowds in general, so a funeral just adds another level of uncomfortableness to it. This one was different though. The actual funeral was pretty much the same, but the trip itself was actually very enjoyable.

My wife and kids, my mom and dad, and my cousin who flew up from Texas all travelled to Michigan together in my dad’s motorhome. We stayed the night at a campground the night before the funeral. My uncle and aunt and a couple of their grandchildren came over to the campsite as well. All in all it was just a nice time of togetherness enjoying each other’s company and talking together.

Isn’t that really what the funeral should be more like? Why do we stand around with the casket saying good things about the dearly departed? They don’t care what we say. Instead, why don’t we all just get together and enjoy each others company and reminisce together? In fact, why do we wait for someone to die to do that? As families, we really need to find more time to spend with each other while we are alive instead of missing the opportunity due to someone’s death.

When I die, I hope all my family and friends just get together and have a big party. In fact, why don’t we just go ahead and get together before I die?

There are so many times in my life where I have worried about something I have said or done that involves a family member or a friend. Maybe I’ve said something and I’m not sure how they took it. Maybe there was something I did and I’m not sure if it upset them. I worry about whether they’re upset with me or if I’ve hurt our relationship.

If they are truly my friend, should I be concerned that I’ve done irreparable damage? I mean obviously if it was something very serious that might be the case, but I’m just talking about day to day missteps like I haven’t called them in a while or I forgot to say “hi” last week at church.

So much of my life has been wasted on purposeless worry. If you are truly my friend, then I would expect that it’s going to take something pretty big to damage the relationship. And the reverse is true too. I’m not going to hold it against you for the little missteps.

I just hate it when I’m not sure if someone is upset with me. Real friends should be friend enough to come up and smack me upside the head and tell me not to do that again. Going off and sulking in a corner is just too ambiguous.

And if you are upset over something small and petty, should I really be concerned about the loss of your friendship if there really was one to start with? Perhaps I’d do better to focus on the friendships where I don’t have to walk on eggshells to maintain the relationship.

Let’s agree together that I won’t be mad at you, and you won’t be made at me so that we can both sleep better tonight and know that we’re forgiven. That’s the kind of friendships I’m looking for. The others are just too easily bruised and I just can’t continue to expend the effort it takes to maintain one of those relationships.